Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Volume III, China, Microfiche Supplement

837. Letter 76 from Clough to Johnson¹

Letter No. 76

Washington, November 8, 1957

Dear Alex:

We have just emerged successful from a spirited encounter with the Chinese Communists supported by the rest of the Soviet bloc at the Red Cross Conference in New Delhi where the Communists endeavored to exclude the Republic of China. Since Ed was present there is no need for me to describe the affair in detail. It is possible that Wang may attack us at the next meeting for our activities there and we will cover this point in your instructions. We sent an official delegation to the Conference only after considerable debate within the Department and with strong misgivings on the part of FE. We felt it would establish an unfortunate precedent for the U.S. Delegation to be present officially with the Chinese Communists. However we did go on the basis that this was to be a unique, humanitarian, non-political meeting at which all those having a reasonable claim to be present would be admitted. We of course could not assent to seeing the Republic of China excluded and the final result of our efforts was the admission of the GRC at which the Chinese Communists and the other Communist regimes walked out.

Judge Goodman in the Powell-Schumann sedition case handed down an order on November 1 giving the U.S. 30 days in which to issue defense attorney Wirin a passport valid for travel to Communist China, failing which he would dismiss the case. I will enclose a copy of the order if we can secure a legible one. In the meeting today with L we decided that the overall interests of the U.S. Government would probably be best served by validating Wirin’s passport. Not to do so would place the responsibility on the State Department for dismissal of the case. Now that we have validated passports of American newsmen, we feel that validating Wirin’s passport would not appreciably decrease the pressure from others who desire to go to Communist China. He has reasons for going which are unique. I don’t believe that validating Wirin’s passport will necessarily lead to his admission to Communist China or the procurement of the evidence which he is seeking. The Chinese Communists in a letter dated October 30 rejected the court’s request for judicial assistance from Chinese Communist courts on the “ground that there is no agreement for judicial assistance between the U.S. and the Peoples Republic of China”. My guess is that Peiping will continue to play this case in such a way as to endeavor to force the U.S. in the direction of Government to Government arrangements or agreements. Final decision has not been made yet as to whether Wirin’s passport will be validated but I believe it will be approved.

Another month has gone by and no Chinese Communist correspondent has applied for a visa. Their inaction supports the speculation in your letter of October 9 that they may not really desire to admit American correspondents to mainland China at this time. If this is the case we can expect Wang at the next meeting simply to repeat his old accusations that we refuse to grant equality and reciprocity and that no exchange can take place until this obstacle has been removed. I have a feeling that they take this insistence on reciprocity rather seriously and to the extent they feel their overall international position is growing stronger they will be less inclined to act with flexibility to bring about actions toward breaking down U.S. restrictions on relations with them unless such actions could be taken on a plane of equality and reciprocity. The aftermath of the “sputnik” may make them more adamant in this respect. The manner in which they handle future developments in the Powell passport case may afford some clues to their thinking.

I am enclosing another copy of our memo of September 30 on Chinese Communist motivations and intentions with respect to travel of Americans so that you will have one in Geneva. Of course it is true that it was pressure from the American press which brought about our change in policy on passports for correspondents and not Chinese Communist pressure. The intent of the last paragraph of the memo was to say that looking at it from Peiping’s point of view since their rather clever and dramatic act of approving visas for a large number of American correspondents set in motion the whole train of events leading to our change in policy, they must give themselves a considerable share of credit for that result.

I sent you and Ed copies of a memorandum to Mr. Robertson regarding our position with respect to Chinese aliens sentenced to prison subsequent to May 31, 1956. In brief it seems to me we have to have a cut-off date beyond which we cannot go in offering Chinese aliens the choice of deportation to Communist China. If we were to make a continuing operation of extending the terms of the Agreed Announcement to Chinese aliens regardless of his date of sentence, we might get into a situation where any Chinese would have carte blanche to commit any crime in the book. Or so it might seem to Justice and to the various State authorities. At the same time, I feel we should not be deprived of our flexibility in this regard, and for that reason I recommended that we not state our position to Immigration and Naturalization Service at this time. So far as we know there is only the one case (Lee Poy) of a Chinese sentenced after May 1956 desiring to return to Communist China under the terms of the Agreed Announcement. He does not appear to have brought his case to the attention of the Indians.

John Dexter, who is going to take Bob Ekvall’s place as interpreter, is now in the Department on consultation. He intends to do some work with Language Service Branch here in the general techniques of conference interpreting, following which he will take a little leave before proceeding to Geneva. We hope he will be able to arrive in Geneva in time for the December meeting. It would be desirable, if you can work it out, to have Dexter sit in on the December and January meetings. It is up to you, of course, whether you wish to introduce Dexter at the December meeting as Ekvall’s replacement, or to have him take La Claire’s place for the December and January meetings. Although it is somewhat irregular, I should think it might serve as a demonstration of our continuing interest in the talks if you introduced Dexter frankly as Bob’s replacement. It would also be more useful to Dexter if he could concentrate on following the interpreting rather than be required to take notes. We are having some trouble fitting Dexter in at a post convenient to Geneva. The only job which has been given serious consideration as a possible slot for Dexter at Geneva is the conference administration position formerly occupied by Bill Sabbagh, but this job is felt to be not entirely appropriate. The difficulty with assigning him to Bern or Zurich is the matter of his language training between meetings. As you know we are asking Ed to look into language training possibilities, but we are not too sanguine about those places.

As you will have noticed from the verbatim record of the 79th MAC meeting, the UNC opening presentation on the missing servicemen was based almost entirely on the draft statement which you saw here last May. There were a couple of unfortunate interpolations, however, which have given rise to some false impressions. In the latter part of the opening statement, it is noted that the Communist falsification of their “accounting” only strengthens the conviction widely held in the United States that American citizens are still being held. The USIA ticker on the MAC meeting misquoted this passage so that it appeared the U.S. Government shared this conviction. The other unfortunate statement in the UNC presentation was the reference to the 1,084 persons on the UNC list against whose names the Communists noted in their last “accounting” that they had no data. This gave rise to the mistaken inference in the USIA ticker and in some news stories that the figure 1,084 is the total number of missing servicemen for whom we are seeking an accounting. As you know, we regard the Communist accounting as unsatisfactory throughout, and not just with regard to the persons on whom they say they have no data.

On the whole, despite these unfortunate passages, I believe the meeting went pretty well. I do not see that the Communists offered us any particular openings for exploitation at Geneva, but they did in their rebuttal concentrate somewhat more than formerly on the proper issue of an accounting.

Their stress upon the fact that the UNC has not yet submitted an accounting for their list of 98,000, if Wang takes the same line at Geneva, should give you the opportunity for the citation of additional individual cases by way of proving our contention that their accounting is completely unsatisfactory and hence does not meet the condition that we have set for rendering an accounting of their missing personnel.

Kindest regards,

Sincerely,

Ralph N. Clough

Enclosure:

1. Memo re “Chinese Communist Motives and Intentions with Respect to Travel of Americans”.

1. Source: Department of State, Geneva Talks Files, Lot 72D415. Confidential; Official–Informal. A copy was sent to Martin.